It appears that Persius wrote seldom and slowly. His Satires were much valued by his cotemporaries. The poet Lucan particularly admired them.

He is said to have died of a stomach complaint. He forms one of the few examples of a young man, during the course of a short life, having acquired immortality for his name by his virtues, his talents, and his learning.

THE

TRANSLATOR'S PROLOGUE.

POET AND FRIEND.

V. I-12.

POET.

NAY, spare your censures, nor condemn the lays:

The town the town may yet accord its praise.Enlighten'd Warton may approve the style;

And classic Giffard nod the head and smile.

F. have I not told you o'er and o'er again,
Not to indulge your rhiming scribbling vein ?
Besides, your age: consider, Sir, your age,
And learn to temper your poetic rage.

P. As time speeds on, and years revolve, my friend,
I grow too idle, or too old to mend.

While yet a youth, my pure descriptive lays

The learn'd could suffer, and the partial praise.

Her brilliant tints Imagination threw

O'er the wild scenes my artless pencil drew;
Soft numbers fell unstudied from my tongue,
Fancy was pleased, and Judgment yet was young:
Gay Hope then smoothed the wrinkled brow of Time,
Love waved his torch, and youth was in its prime.
But soon the tempest gather'd o'er my head,
Health lost her bloom, and faithless Pleasure fled;
Friendship retired, and left me to decay,

And Love desponding threw his torch away.

'Twas then, when sickness and when sorrow drew
Their sable curtain on my clouded view;
When lost to hope, I wander'd, wan and pale,
O'er Cintra's rocks, or sought Vaucluse's vale;
That left in distant climes to droop and pine,
The Muse's converse and her art were mine:
Nor less beloved has been the tuneful lay,
Since fortune smiled, and fate restored my day.
F. O idle talk! your early song, 'tis true,
Might please the rustic and unletter'd crew;
But now the strain has lost its wonted fire,
His art the Poet, and its tones the lyre.

P. And yet for me the Muses still have charms,

Their light yet guides me, and their fire yet warms.

For me the silvan world has beauties still,

The shaded valley, or the sun-clad hill.

Nor yet unwelcome does the hour draw nigh,
Which leaves me free from busy crowds to fly;
The hour which warns me to renew the oil,
The poet's pleasure, and the student's toil.
Nor undelighted does my mind recall

Its infant joys in yonder Gothic hall;

Where still the legendary tale goes round,

Of charms and spells, of treasures lost and found, Of fearful goblins, and malicious sprites, Enchanted damsels, and enamour'd knights:

Or led by fancy back to ancient times,

To fairer regions, and to milder climes,
I love through all the Muse's haunts to rove,
On Hybla's hill, or in th' Aonian grove.
Or seek those fabled scenes, by poets sung,
Where his famed lyre the Thracian artist strung;
Where Phoebus, sighing o'er the shepherd's tomb,
Bade the sweet flower of Hyacinthus bloom;
Where with young Zephyr Flora loved to play,
And hid her blushes in the lap of May;
Where Dian nightly woo'd a blooming boy,

And, veil'd by darkness, was no longer coy ;